Every time I finish a book from this author under any name they are writing under I am blown away. How is one person so talented?! This will be and has been easy to recommend because Seanan McGuire is one of the best around.

An enjoyable read, although slightly forgettable. Definitely will read more by this author though! Overall worth it.

Tidal Creatures by Seanan McGuire

I really enjoyed Middlegame when it came out and voted for it as best novel on the Hugo Awards at the time. The writing there was lyrical and a little dreamlike in a way that was a little different from most everything else of Seanan McGuire’s (but reminded me of her Parisitology books a little).

I remember going to a comic book store in October 2019 when I got her to sign some Ghost Spider and Nightcrawler comics (she was amazing, BTW, and was so kind to my then 7-year-old daughter, who was wearing a ghost spider hooded sweatshirt) and asking her if there would be a follow up to Middlegame. I was extra excited when Seasonal Fears was finally announced, and I was even more thrilled when I found out that more books were coming in this series.

So I was overjoyed when The publisher and NetGalley awarded me an audio eARC of Tidal Crestures (I had already preordered a kindle copy beforehand) in exchange for an honest review. This was, in many ways, the book that I wanted Seasonal Fears to be. I loved the moon deities, I loved the return of Rodger and Dodger, and I adored Kelpie so much.

Since I follow Seanan McGuire on social media, I know that Kelpie is based on one of her D&D characters, a tiefling who thought she was a mutated alligator at first and didn’t realize who she was in the world and that her entire life and backstory was false. This clearly crept into the characterization of Kelpie in this novel and it really enriched my enjoyment of the text.

This is one of the most wonderful books I read all year, and Amber Benson is growing on me as a narrator. I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Tidal Creatures is the 3rd-installment to Seanan McGuire's epic Adult SFF-series that has not just created a whole new world unto itself, but a whole new cosmology. Middlegame took the world by storm when it was released in 2019. I wasn't immune. When I read it, I fell in love. I always knew McGuire was a talented writer with a plethora of unique ideas, but this thing is off the charts.

The sequel Seasonal Fears didn't get quite the same level of fanfare upon its release in 2022, but I loved it nevertheless. I wouldn't say I loved it as much as Middlegame, but it was a brilliant continuation of the story.

Tidal Creatures is a monster in the way it continued to build out this complex and enticing world. I loved meeting new characters like Kelpie, Judy and Isabella. The cast of characters felt broader in this one than the previous novels and it was interesting to learn about them. Additionally, their interactions were deep and their banter, funny. Most of the new information we learned was accomplished through character conversations. Because of this, it never felt info-dumpy.

This story felt different too, in that it is a murder mystery of sorts. Someone is killing moon goddesses, and it's up to our cast to figure out why and then stop them. I thought that was an intriguing way to advance this overall story arc. The way it tied into the lore of the Impossible City and the concepts that we had starting building in the previous books was very well done.

I will say, I think if I read this again, I would probably enjoy it even more. There is a lot going on here and the way that the various perspectives are initially introduced, not coming together until a little way in, it was a lot to follow.

A part of me wants to say, I am done reading these as they're released for the rest of the series. I want to wait until they are all out so I can binge them all at once. Before Seasonal Fears released, I did reread Middlegame directly before I picked it up and I do think I enjoyed it that much more because of that. But now, we're so deep. I don't know if I have time to reread them all prior to every other subsequent release...

This is easy for me to say now. I'm sure as the next book releases I am going to flock to it like a Publisher's dream. All past hesitation blown out of the water by the overwhelming FOMO that I'm gonna feel. Either way, no matter how it happens, I love this series with my whole heart and will happily see it to the end.

I would recommend continuing on with the series to anyone who read and enjoyed Middlegame. I also highly recommend the companion series, The Up-and-Under by A. Deborah Baker, for more insight into the background of this world.

Thank you to the publisher, Tor and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. This series is an absolute tour de force in the SFF space and I cannot wait for more!

Tidal Creatures is book 3 in the Alchemical Journeys series by Seanan McGuire. Tidal Creatures follows physical manifestations of lunar goddesses from cultures across the world, through mortal hosts. The goddesses take turns shining their light in the night sky over the Impossible City. Someone has figured out how to access the Everything and is trying to find a way to use the moon goddesses to access the Impossible City.

I was intrigued by the plot and inclusion of the moon and lunar goddesses. I also liked that the story was a murder mystery of sorts. While I did enjoy listening to this latest addition to the Alchemical Journeys series, I felt like there was A LOT of over-explanation and repeated information. I also felt that the ending was abrupt, especially after the amount of over-explanation that was done throughout the rest of the book. I enjoyed the inclusion of Roger and Dodger. While I enjoyed Middlegame more than this latest installment in the series, this is a worthwhile read if you have read the previous two. I would read a fourth installment into the series as well if there were to be one.

Regarding the audiobook narration: I listened to the book at 1.5x speed and feel that the pacing and character differentiation was done well. The narrator for Tidal Creatures is the same narrator from the previous 2 books. The narration of this book is MUCH better than the first book. I almost DNF the first book MULTIPLE times because the narrator made me want to throw my phone into the wall and shatter it into a million pieces because the voices she used for Reed and ESPECIALLY Lee were so incredibly terrible and over the top that it enraged me. But thank God, the narration in this one was much improved and I didn’t want to throw my phone.

Thank you @macmillan.audio for allowing me to listen via @netgalley All thoughts are entirely my own.

Narrator was fine, but I think this book series does better as a actual read as there's a lot to follow and things can get somewhat confusing with audio.

While I have enjoyed the previous two installments of the Alchemical Journeys books, this one seemed to be sprinkled with statements about "the white man", making a point to say when things are racist, statements of "you don't have permission to touch me", etc. that just stood out as odd in the overall scheme of things. The story was flat and didn't seem to have a whole lot going on. I could probably summarize in two sentences the entire book. For people who were killing uninhibitedly two books ago, they have now become "woke".

Tidal Creatures is the third book in the Alchemical Journeys series and needs to be read in order to make any sense. Seanan McGuire focuses on the the lore of the moon and all the gods who have incarnated into this world in Tidal Creatures. People are chosen to take on aspects of different moon deities and travel across the sky of the impossible city at the heart of creation. The Alchemists are looking for a way to use them to finally make it to that Impossible City to rule the world.

At its heart, Tidal Creatures is a murder mystery. Jane, the human aspect of Change’e, goes to meet up with one of the other moon gods as he travels back to the from his journey across the sky and pick up the key to the door. However what she finds is the aspect of Mani, another moon god, carrying a dead body. One of the other moon gods was killed on the path to their journey across the sky and no one knows why. Jane will enlist some help from a few other of the more powerful of the aspects of the moon to try and find the killer, and figure out how they got into the secret area in the first place as there is supposed to only by one key.

The second thread of the story follows Kelpi. She thought she was transformed in a horrible lab experiment. But the truth is much different, the alchemists were trying to create familiars of the moon gods in order to find one of the more powerful ones. Kelpi is the incarnation of Artemis's Hinde. She has her own journey to take once she leaves the lab and will run into some people that might be able to assist her as she tries and finds the Goddess she was made for, before the Alchemists find her.

The story is set at Berkley and Jane is avidly trying to avoid a certain professor there as she thinks she will be discovered. Said professor is Roger and as a reader I couldn't wait for him to enter the story since I loved most of the characters from Middlegame. Roger, Dodger and company do finally enter the story and we learn a lot of what they have been up to and why they haven't tried to get to the impossible city yet since they are the living embodiments of the Doctrine of Ethos and the city is theirs to rule.

I enjoyed most of this story. The lore and creativity of the story is fantastic and Seanan McGuire remains one of the most creative writers with her worldbuilding and storylines. Most of her characters are rich, complex and mostly good even though they can be terrible and fierce when needed. That said, I think she has also fallen into something that I've seen a lot of writers do lately with some of the social concerns in the current world and they try to jam pack too many of those in small snips and snipes into one story. There were multiple times and characters the referenced white males in a negative connotation and twice it occurred at times I really didn't think it fit. Also the other "bad" person was a rich white housewife that was bored and just wanted to be special but there was so much emphasis on her 'privilege'. There are ways to put things into stories that do not take your reader out of the story and when they pile up and the author's bias shows it can be distracting.

Overall, if you enjoyed Middlegame, I think this is going to fit into your life quite well and be very entertaining. I will say that the ending felt a little rushed but overall the pacing in the book is really good and kept me very engaged in the characters and the mystery. I loved Kelpi and her overall arc. The Alchemists are mostly a terrible bunch, evil scientists and all that, but they are also amazing at the things they create and their ambition towards their ultimate goal to get to the impossible city. While I did think this was the last book in the series, there is still going to be one more and I'm really excited to see how it all plays out and if we will get some of the characters from Seasonal Fears to contribute to the ending as well. Carry on to the Impossible City!

Narration:
Amber Benson is back again for Tidal Creatures, she did a great job on both of the other books of the series and so I'm happy to see her back to reprise her rolls of the prior characters and create new voices. She has a great flow for the story and I enjoy her cadence. Amber's narration makes sure you can tell all the voices apart and some of them carry almost a singsong effect, but I think that for those characters it is fitting. I enjoyed her performance and believe it adds to my overall enjoyment of the story. I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

Amber Benson should be contracted to narrate all books. I love Seanan McGuires writing and going into this NetGalley read I hadn’t read the first two of this series so of course I had to do that first.
This one was the second best, much better than the second book but not as good as the first. Roger and Dodger and Erin are more fluidly worked into this one. I loved Kelpie! Diana was obvious but I think she was supposed to be.
Thanks for the fun listen, NetGalley! And thanks for writing these great books, Seanan!

The moon is many entities that share the crossing of the sky and know the Impossible City. And they are also people who go to school at Berkeley. When a couple of these moon gods/students discover another that has been murdered, secrets start revealing themselves and the fate of the world as they know it is under attack.

This was my first novel in the Alchemical Journeys series (I did not read the first two) and it definitely gave me vibes like N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became novels (which I also enjoyed). Here we have people that represent broader natural and scientific aspects of the world and the alchemists who are looking to take advantage of them to manufacture a different kind of structure and order to gain access to the Impossible City. It’s a very interesting and enjoyable novel and I’m definitely going to need to check out the previous ones too!

Finally, narration in this audiobook was spot on. Each character has their own voice and the story flowed nicely. Very easy to listen to. 5 stars.

Review based on a Advanced Audiobook provided by Macmillan Audio and NetGalley. Thank you!

I love this series. The Characters are just chefs kiss. the writing is just so beautifully done. I will say it's not the fastest paced series but it's worth it if you love character heavy books. I would talk in more detail about this one but it is the 3rd in a series and I don't want to accidently spoil anything!

thank you Netgalley and the publishers for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

I received an advanced version of this audio book For my honest review. I made it 20% into the book before I stopped reading. I found the switching of many perspectives a bit too hard to follow and since it is a third in the series I was missing background information. I felt that the world building was really well done but the characters weren’t engaging for me. It could have been the narrator that made me stop.

I read the text version which was a bit slow, but then had the opportunity to listen to the audiobook and WOW! The narrator is excellent and the story fabulous - it completely eliminated the pacing challenges of the text.

I did not read the first 2 books in the series, and while I'm sure I missed some backstory, or there are references I didn't get, the book felt complete. The first 30% was slow for me because there was so many explanations throughout the book, After the 30% mark, the book started picking up and it got more and more interesting. There's a lot of of characters - lunar goddesses, their human hosts, witch-wannabees, alchemists, etc. A lot to keep track of, but surprisingly in the audiobook format I was able to keep track of all the characters, and they all felt different. The plot took time to develop - missing lunars and alchemists with something mysterious going on and again, it took me quite a while to get into it, but I did enjoy it

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley.

I love the this book and I will do my best to explain why, and will probably bumble it, sorry.

This book takes place in the Rodger/Dodger universe and they and Erin are integral characters. But, there are a whole new society of creatures - tidal creatures - that we’ve never met before.

There are people all over the world that the moon calls out to. For most of us moon lovers it is simply a deep, unending love of the moon and her ways. In this book there are those who aren’t just called out to, but are called out to become hosts for different aspects of the moon, to shine over the impossible city.

There are so many moon gods and goddesses - but this book focuses on Chang-O, Artemis, Diana, Mani, and Losna. We learn that one of the lunar goddess incarnations is dead. The problem? She was killed in The Everything, which means another lunar killed her.

Seanan Mcguire’s writing always leaves me satisfied, happy, and pleased with this crazy universe. I love how I get drawn into a world that is impossible and how it goes from being impossible to improbable to, hey, that makes sense to me! It’s a very fun series and I highly recommend it. I do recommend reading Middlegame and Seasonal Fears first - otherwise Rodger and Dodger won’t make much sense.

One of the greatest new characters is Kelpie - a hind (a female red deer) that is also human. She is an alchemical concoction that was told she is a girl and now that her mother/maker is gone - she needs to go out into the world and find her place in it.

I just have to give a shout out to the narrator, Amber Benson (she played Tara on Buffy) and say that she is a phenomenal narrator. She does men’s voices (David, Rodger, alchemy creep), women’s voices (Dodger, Erin, Kelpie, Isabel, Katrina, Judy, Anna), boys voices, girls voices, and even the duality voices of goddesses and their human counterparts. I am serious this woman’s ability to narrate amazes me. Keeping track of all of those voices can’t be easy!

Please read this book!

The plot for this book really had me excited.

I had a huge problem with all the threads to the story. It was.... A LOT!

Too many POV to keep straight and I had to go back a few times because I missed stuff.

The character development was well done there was just so many characters and the tone didnt change much.

The ending was actually well worth the rest of the book and narration was well done!

3.5 stars

Tidal Creatures: is book 3 in the Alchemical Journeys series. This world is unique full of a confusing journey to find a killer trying to destroy the divinities that keep order and balance possible by targeting them on their earthly manifestation ms when they are weakest outside the impossible city. When one of the murders appears to happen inside the everything before the manifestation has stepped down from divinity to their earthly counterpart. Something that should not be possible. Leaving an unsettling knowledge that the Impossible City is at risk. It is left to the moon divinities to solve the murders and protect the Impossible City at all costs.

I found this installment incredibly compelling as secrets of the alchemical world and compelling characters are revealed. I and was swept away wishing the story would never end. I highly recommend this book and series!

Another great addition to the series, this time with even more Roger and Dodger! The Lunar deities bring part of the naturally evolved world to the efforts of the alchemical community to shape things to their preferences. When I read the first book in the series I had no idea there would be further additions, but with each additional title I’m left wanting more!

I was provided an ALC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own. I really enjoyed the narrator and her ability to voice all of the many different characters we encountered in this book.

This is the 3rd book in the series, and I do no recommend reading it as a standalone. While this introduces several new characters and this focuses on the murder mystery they are involved in, there are underlying themes and explanations that you are going to need to understand first. We are reunited with Roger and Dodger in this installment and to really understand who they are and what their purpose is you are going to need to read Middlegame and Seasonal Fears in order.

As mentioned this introduces several new characters, which I found hard to keep track of at times. A few of our new characters are lunar gods, each of whom have 2 personalities inside one body. It took me quite a while to keep track of all of the new lunar deities and how that all worked, but it was a really interesting concept. McGuire always ties the novel to some type of lore, and in this one it was various mythology related to the moon. When one of the dieties is found murdered the other lunar gods/godesses band together to solver her murder and find out what is going on. This leads them down an alchemical rabbit hole of strange occurrences and interactions. We are reunited with Roger and Dodger and The Impossible City as they try to solve the mystery and stop the alchemists from taking over the city.

I feel like this is a series I need to read from beginning to end again to really grasp the entire premise. This particular book had alot going on and I found it confusing at times. I felt the same way about Middlegame. I think if there is another book in the series I would want to reread all the books again to really grasp all of the concepts before diving in again. That being said this book was still enjoyable, and the worldbuilding was great.

I love being in this world and really enjoyed this entry in the series! I appreciated the way the storylines came together, the relationships building, the characters, and the overall sense of fun and adventure. Even though I enjoyed Seasonal Fears about as much as I did Middlegame, I will admit that there was a level of fun that was missing for me, and Tidal Creatures brought it back up.

For starters, exploring the lunar goddesses was such a delightful addition. I got caught up in the lore, the rules, and the ways in which they added to the overall mosaic of this world. Kelpie is also one of the cutest characters I've read in a while. I want nothing but the best for her!

If you're someone who thought that the appearances of Roger and Dodger felt forced in Seasonal Fears, they do feel more natural here. At this point, it seems to me that each book offers a building block and that Roger and Dodger continue to be central to the overall story we're telling, even if we're exploring other parts of the universe within a particular book. Perhaps knowing that will help folks manage expectations for Tidal Creatures (and I assume for the rest of the series).

I totally loved Middlegame and the story of Roger and Dodger on their journey to become the Doctrine of Ethos and avoid being killed by the alchemists who created them. They only had a small cameo in Seasonal Fears, which was also a good book though not as strong as the first one. I was so happy to see Roger and Dodger make a reappearance in Tidal Creatures. And it wasn't just a snippet of them. It made sense to have them join up with the Lunar Goddesses and God who travel over the impossible city and figure out the mystery of why several of the goddesses have been killed as they are supposed to take over the impossible city one day (being the Doctrine of Ethos and all). The Lunar deity are very interesting with their different powers (from growing peaches that make people immortal, to going on the hunt and shooting arrows from a special bow), both their step up forms and also their human selves. It was nice to see more of the impossible city, even if the despicable alchemists are also trying to find a way in. They are the true monsters of the world, not the constructs and cuckoos they make who always seem to rebel and break away. In this book, it is Kelpie who is adorably cute. She was lucky to find Isabella and her son who were able to get her where she was needed via Roger and Dodger and their "clown house." This was a fun book to read and now I need the next one where hopefully the alchemists are stopped forever and the impossible city is safe and all those who are connected to it.

I have listened to the first two book as well as read them and so I knew Amber Benson was a great narrator. She did a wonderful job with Tidal Creatures and it made the book really come alive. Great book to read or listen to! I highly recommend it!